Reviving this old thread because we are new to travel soccer and confused about the leagues. It seems like NCSL is very large and CCL is comparatively very small. It sounds like a lot of clubs left CCL for NCSL in the past couple of years?

Based on posts here it sounds like there are not "supposed" to be divisions based on ability at the younger ages for NCSL, but I noticed that for fall 2022 clubs' top teams tend to be in divisions named after letters early in the alphabet (e.g. division C) and lower teams from the same club are named after letters later in the alphabet (e.g. division P). So it seems like there is some grouping by ability/competitiveness? Is a lower (later in the alphabet) division in NCSL considered "better" than any team in CCL at this point?

My child played NextGen in the Fall and found some of the above to be true. While some clubs put their top teams in NCSL and bottom teams in CCL, some clubs are ONLY in CCL. That meant our team (the bottom team) played against top teams of other clubs and got crushed. At tournaments, we played against NCSL bottom tier teams and suddenly had competitive games.
So I would say that there are good teams in both leagues but I'm advocating for our team moving to NCSL since we might have some good & competitive games.
Regarding driving time, max was about 45 minutes from NoVA.